Dark Nights and Warm Days
by CrazySockGirl
Summary: For Ha-ni, sometimes being happy means being sad. It means doing what hurts the most in order to get what you want, what you need. And Seung-jo's never really understood that.


After she throws away any chance of a future with Joon-gu, Ha-ni walks back to the house. It's gloomy and the raindrops are ice cold bullets on her skin. The guilt is sinking in as she imagines how she played on Joon-gu's feelings for her. She knows her friends won't understand why she rejected him. But how can she say yes to someone she doesn't love? Because even though Seung-jo doesn't love her back now, she is confident that there will be a day when she will find mutual love, love that burns on both ends. And, for a moment, she'd like to pretend that she said yes to Joon-gu , because there are parts of her desperately wishing she could love Joon-gu, and she does, but not in the way that he wants her too, not the way anyone wants her to. He's her brother and her best friend and he'll never be her lover. So it isn't fair to pretend to love him, and it's impossible to make herself love him.

And then Seung-jo is there, standing on the sidewalk and holding an umbrella, looking at her, putting the umbrella over her head. Suddenly all Ha-ni can hear is Joon-go's voice inside her head telling her all Seung-jo has ever been to her is mean and that Seung-jo will never love her back.

"What did you say?" He asks and for a moment she's confused, but then she understands what he's asking and she'd ask how he knew about the proposal- except that he's a _genius_ and that's explanation enough. There's this desperate part of her wishing she could be the cool one for once and play innocent, so she does, but he doesn't buy it. She wants to tell him she said yes and she's going to spend her life with Joon-gu, but she can't drag him any further out to sea with her. So she does one of the few things she does well in her life and tells the truth.

"No."

Seung-jo slips his hand into hers and begins to pull her along. She glances up at his face, but it reveals nothing. Seung-jo doesn't look at her. Doesn't make eye contact at all. She wants to yell at him for being so cold and icy, for kissing her and throwing her away, for letting her in and then becoming engaged. She wants to pull her hand away because his hand is frigid and his grip is too tight. She doesn't. As they walk home, she feels so cold, colder than she's been in her entire life. And she imagines a life spent walking behind him. Seung-jo releases her hand before they step into the house.

She lies in bed that night, in the beautiful room that has been made up for her, and thinks life is full of warm things and love should be warm too. She thinks love should be warm and maybe it shouldn't be painful and that maybe, no matter what the romance novels say, love doesn't have to be hard and it doesn't have to hurt.

She asks her dad to book a hotel the next day. He agrees and she skips tennis practice to move her stuff into the hotel room. Seung-jo isn't home. Eun-jo looks like he wants to say something, so she smiles and gives him her phone number, just in case he ever needs her. He rejects it of course, so she slips it into one of his school books. She hugs Geum-hee and promises to meet up with her a few times a week because she's the closest thing she's ever had to a mother and there's no reason to make this even more painful.

The first few days in the hotel are long and lonely. Her heart begs to go back to Seung-jo and Geum-hee. She doesn't eat for a while, doesn't go to her classes. But then comes the relief. It washes over her one night, so fast she starts to sob with the release of it. She doesn't really understand why she is relieved, but her hearts is suddenly lighter and her chest less heavy and she is breathing and seeing the sun. She hadn't realized she couldn't see the sun. And her head is calmer without voices telling her she is less, telling her she is stupid.

She returns to tennis, which is hard, but the others say they've missed her and she realizes she has made a home for herself on this team. Seung-jo arrives at practice one day and she hides without thinking. He asks for her and everyone is confused as to where she disappeared to, but she can see Seung-jo's face tightening from her hiding spot and knows that he understands. And then he looks at her and she looks away. He doesn't come back, which makes her happy because he might be good at tennis, but this is her team and she doesn't want to have to give it up.

For a while Seung-jo seems to show up at all of her old haunts, with a look and a rawness to his actions that doesn't suit him. They never speak, Ha-ni hiding or engaging in seemingly in depth conversations with random strangers. Eventually, Ha-ni's friends corner him and give him a speech. This one is different from the others, it isn't long and they don't quaver under his intense gaze. They tell him that enough is enough. And they tell him that she needs to be let go of. He stops hanging around her, but his eyes try to search hers every time he passes. When she stops lowering her head, he stops looking.

Eventually, she stops seeing him around altogether.

One day, weeks later, Hae-ra runs into her, smiles in that soft, polite, gloating way and tells her that Seung-jo dropped out. Ha-ni smiles and congratulates her for her engagement and for a moment... just a moment... surprise fills Hae-ra's face. Ha-ni gives her a smile, one she hasn't used much since before, well, everything.

"So you really are giving up?" Hae-ra asks.

"He's a hard man to love."

"I always thought he'd pick you."

"I did too, but I think maybe we're toxic for each other." She replies carefully. She used to think she would drag Sunjo down, but now she wonders if Sunjo didn't drag her down a little too. Hae-ra doesn't understand what she means though, and smiles in a way that says she has always thought Ha-ni wasn't enough for Seung-jo. Everyone always thinks she's not good enough. Only Geum-hee and Joon-gu have ever considered maybe Seung-jo is the one who isn't enough.

"We should get dinner all of us, sometime." Hae-ra offers, happy to have finally gotten what she wants, having won, even if it doesn't quite feel like a victory. Hae-ra silently wonders if it ever will. Ha-ni lowers her eyes, and Hae-ra thinks she might say no, but then Ha-ni's head lifts.

"Eventually," She says. And she finds herself meaning it.

It happens one day, after she eats lunch with Geum-hee, who is still a little upset over Ha-ni moving out and the ever more pressing reality that Seung-jo is going to marry Hae-ra. She convinces Geum-hee that she's happy and that she's over Seung-jo. She surprised, not because it's the truth, but because it is more of a truth than it was before. Seung-jo was her sun for so long and that kind of love- or obsession she corrects herself- must be slowly worked out of one's system.

Later, when she's staring at the report card Geum-hee handed her and wondering what she could possibly do for the rest of her life, she gets a call from Min-ah, asking her to see the cartoon she's drawn. She goes. Min-ah's got a lovely work station in one of the rooms in the art department, and as she stares at the cartoons she must laugh. They are a hopelessly romantic rendition of her own life and Min-ah's wringing her hands nervously in the corner.

"I wanted to get your permission before I try to use them for anything, you know, since they are inspired by your story." Min-ah says. And so they are, except in Min-ah's cartoon, Seung-jo and her are in love, engaged, and over the moon. She feels a yearning for her own life to reflect this portrayal, but then she thinks of how he kissed her and how it didn't change anything. She thinks of how hard it would be to spend her whole life lying in bed with a man made of glass and granite.

"Totally. They're amazing, Min-ah," Ha-ni says, and then sighs. Min-ah looks worried. "I wish I was as good at something as you and Joo-ri are."

"You'll find something someday." Min-ah assures her. "Want to go show these to Joo-ri."

Eventually she ends up dropping out of Parang. It doesn't make sense for her to go if she can't get good grades and if she doesn't even have a purpose for attending. She spends time waitressing at her father's place. There's another girl there, Chris, who is utterly in love with Joon-gu. It only takes a little pushing for Ha-ni to get them together, after she makes it absolutely clear to Joon-gu that he and she will never happen.

Then, nearly a year after the rainy night she decided love wasn't something that should hurt, she gets an invitation in the mail. It's lovely and she remembers how proud Geum-hee was when she showed Ha-ni how beautifully she designed it. She stares at the picture of Hae-ra and Seung-jo and thinks about how happy Hae-ra looks, how desperately happy she looks, and knows not attending the wedding will look bad, but also about how attending it would make everything complicated. She sends the invitation back with sincerest apologies, saying she will be in Seoul at the time, which, she decides, she will be.

So she goes to Seoul, just for a few days, and she loves it. The bustle of the city, the feeling of not knowing anyone. She herself belongs to a city, she knows, but it is not as wonderful as this one, she thinks. And then she goes back and she gushes to everyone, and they all get sick of it after the first five minutes, (except for Chris, who understands what it means to leave and fall in love with a place-and a person- but also a place.)

Then she runs into Hae-ra doing shopping one day. In between the polite pleasantries, Ha-ni apologizes again for missing the wedding. Hae-ra thanks her and it goes unspoken that they both understand that the wedding would have been quite depressing with her there. Ha-ni offers up a dinner as a way of forgiveness. Hae-ra stares at her a bit, and then replies in the affirmative. They exchange numbers and before you know it, they're eating lunch together in a café, laughing and reminiscing.

"I haven't seen you around lately." Hae-ra says. Ha-ni shrugs.

"College isn't right for everyone," She replies, and Hae-ra, familiar with the concept, and thinking of her husband, who has also dropped out of college, decides not to breach the subject.

"Thank you." Hae-ra blurts. Ha-ni looks at her with confusion. "I love him you know. We're not passionate people by nature, either of us, but I do love him." Hae-ra looks down and Ha-ni finds herself reaching across the table to touch hands.

"You're suited well to each other, really. He never quite fit me you know. One of us was always going to be a little unhappy. It was usually me. I just decided that it was time for me to be happy and for that to happen, I needed to let go." Ha-ni says by way of explanation. Hae-ra wants to say something, but she doesn't, and they part ways, exchanging phone numbers and promises to meet up again soon.

It ends up being a while before the dinner happens. The next day, she is in Joo-ri's hair saloon, sweeping up hair with a broom as Joo-ri cuts Chris's hair and Min-ah draws, all four of them singing along to pop hits. Their favorite song comes on, a hit from a new K-pop group and none notice as the door opens. A particularly difficult solo comes on and the others fall silent as Ha-ni sings along, all in awe of her voice, even the man standing with a slushy pouring down his tailor made suit. It ends and Min-ah whistles.

"I never knew you could sing like that, Ha-ni" Chris says.

"It's nothing" Ha-ni says "It's just for fun. I'm not really all that good."

"Not all that good?" Says the stranger wearing a slushy, "You're better than some of the professional singers I've worked with."

His name, it turns out, is Hwang Mi-nam, and he's an up and coming composer as well as a member of a K-pop group- one that's holding auditions, which, as it turns out is why he's covered in slushies. Apparently one of their singers has decided that she wants to go to the US to marry her American dentist fiancé and the fans are not happy. Ha-ni tries to convince Mi-nam that she's not that smart and she's not that talented, but he makes her sing one of his songs and tells her to come to Seoul to audition. Ha-ni loves Seoul, and when Joo-ri points out that Ha-ni certainly doesn't want to spend the rest of her life as a waitress, she agrees.

Seoul is as wonderful as the last time she visited. She gets the position in the group, and it is at once the hardest and the most rewarding thing she has ever had to do. The songs she learns follow her to bed and she spends hours after regular practices trying to perfect the choreography. Her feet are sore, some days she is so tired she can barely function, the fans are extreme, and she is still as light headed as ever, but as she sits in the recording studio at the piano as Mi-nam chugs out another hit song, and watches the other members of her new family bicker playfully, she thinks her heart may burst.

In the seconds before her first time singing on stage, the lights seem too bright, the crowd too loud, the wings too hot, and thinks desperately of going home. For one bizarre second, she sees herself in a hospital, and Seung-jo is there, and they are arguing over something stupid, but then Mi-nam is grasping her hand and everything is quiet. And then she is onstage, singing and dancing her heart out and feeling alive.

Afterwards, she is standing on the balcony, trying to stamp down the adrenaline that is still rushing through her, causing her hands to quake. She dials her father, who, sick of being lonely, moved back in with the Seung-jo's family. He asks after her, saying Eun-jo showed him a video of her singing and he's never been more proud. She says she loves him and she probably won't be back for a long time. He says it's okay if she never comes back as long as she calls every one in a while and is happy.

And when she hangs up Mi-nam is there with hot tea and a smile.

"I'm glad I was a mess that day" he says resting his forearms on the railing around her and trying for all the world to look cool, but only managing to look sweet and cuddly. Ha-ni giggles and he looks at her, face twisting into confusion, which only makes her laugh more. "If that day hadn't been a disaster, we wouldn't be here." Ha-ni thinks of an earthquake. Then she thinks of a man as cold as ice, and another man, wearing a slushy, who has never once called her stupid.

"Disasters are fate's way of moving things along," She says. He hums. She thinks that this is what she was really looking for that night in the rain. Warmth and the possibility of happiness outside of the choices which had been given to her.

Ten or so months later, when Mi-nam announces he needs to speak to her father in person, for reasons he made _very_ clear, she heads back to where she grew up for the first time in almost two years. She has never been gone so long, and as soon as they get back she is swamped with business and preparations. Her father, older now, ready to hand over the noodle business to Joon-go, will come back with them to Seoul, so she needs to get him packed as well as meet with all of her friends and introduce Mi-nam. She's a celebrity now, and everyone wants to talk to the girl from class F whose band has consistently made top charts.

Geum-hee suggests they stay with the family, but Ha-ni knows that the house is much too cramped now, with Seung-jo and Hae-ra's baby, so they book a hotel. They visit for dinner the first night back. The baby is beautiful, and Hae-ra, Geum-hee, and Ha-ni have a lovely time catching up. Ha-ni manages to convince them that a trip to Seoul is in order. They start dinner without Seung-jo, who is caught up at work. Everyone is loud and boisterous. Eun-jo offers up a few comments himself, including a surprising one admitting that he's missed Ha-ni, even if he claims it's only because he's now the least intelligent person in the house.

When Seung-jo walks in, he is silent at the scene. He sits down quietly next to Hae-ra, piling his plate with food and staring at Ha-ni as if she is a ghost, despite knowing of her visit. Ha-ni stares a little too, but only because she hasn't seen him in years. He's gained weight, and it looks good on him. He looks healthy. He isn't relaxed, but his marble surface has withered away with the years into a quiet sort of comfortable.

Later, when Hae-ra's putting the baby to bed and Eun-jo escapes the house to do homework with a female friend, Mi-nam pulls Hani's father and Seung-go's parents aside to announce his intentions to marry Ha-ni. For a while, Ha-ni and Seung-jo stare in silence as they wait in the living room.

"Hae-ra's happy." Ha-ni says as they walk out the gate. "Are you?"

"At first," He hesitates "I wasn't. I was confused. I agreed to date her but when I heard you might marry... I think I loved you. I thought about telling you, marrying you,"

"I think..." Ha-ni interrupts, but then pauses because these next words need to be correct, "That loving you would have destroyed me. Slowly, but- Don't speak. Listen to me Seung-jo. Most of me bloomed when you were near, but there was also a part of me that died every time too. And that part, the one that withers when we are together, I needed it. More than I needed you."

"I-"

"I don't want you to respond" Ha-ni interrupts again. "I just want to know whether you are happy now."

"Yeah" Seung-jo says, a hint of awe on his face, which shifts into a quiet contemplation. "Yeah, I am. Are you?"

"Desperately" Ha-ni says, "Which is exactly what matters most."

He nods and before he can respond, Mi-nam is returning to her side and pulling her up to whisper to her all the ways they are going to become familiar with their hotel room, which she takes as a sign the engagement talk went well.

Years later, as she watches Seung-jo's intelligent and reserved son chase after her rebellious and headstrong daughter, she listens to her husband and Seung-jo bemoan the loss of their own youth, and she thinks about other paths she could have taken. And how she knows that she had other possible happy endings out there for her if she had wanted to take them, but this one- the one she got to choose- has definitely made her the happiest.

 **AN: I love this show and all of the other versions of it. I also love the romance between Seung-jo and Ha-ni, although sometimes Seung-jo's and the other character's treatment of her makes me very frustrated. I might end up turning this into an even longer fic, I'm not sure yet, but I was happy to get at least some irritation with the couple out. I didn't even try to show Seung-jo's perspective, mostly because I don't understand him and have a lot of trouble writing him. Thanks for reading, Please review. **


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